Book Review4 of 5 stars to Blood Shot, the fifth release in a mystery series of 20 books (and still counting), written by Sara Paretsky in 1988. I stumbled upon this thriller and suspense book series during college, upon coming across some of the bright yellow, red and purple covers. After catching my attention, I gave them a chance and then devoured several in a row in the first few years to try to catch up. The main character, VI Warshawski, is a tough female private investigator in Chicago, a fictional character resembling no person I’d ever met before. In this book, VI goes back to the dangerous streets she grew up on to help a childhood friend find the father she never knew; the friend’s mother is dying which leaves a big hole in her life. VI, reluctant to help, gives in and starts an explosive path into history, uncovering crimes among the big business world, including toxic chemicals and the lengths people will go to keep some information secret.

For those new to the series… this is a really great set of “modern day” PI detective books with a strong female lead. For the most part, VI is quite likable; however, it takes a little getting used to. She’s tough, a bit rude and direct, and often fails to realize she’s holding herself back from being open-minded. In the first few, I thought… no one like this exists. Please forgive me, I was a naive 20 year old from the suburbs who thought all people were generally friendly. VI’s a different kind of friendly. If you’re on her good list, she’ll take a bullet for you. Seriously. And she has. But if she’s on your bad list, you might get some acid thrown in your face. OK, maybe not that bad, but you get the drift. The fun part part about these books is they were right in the beginning of technology’s rapid growth on the detection front. Cell phones and computers were just becoming common in the hands of regular people. See was still using coins in a pay phone and an answering service. I can’t imagine waiting for your service to tell you you had a message. Wow! But makes you realize how much harder she had to work to solve her crime — natural talents and ingenuity. Good one to sample from the series.

About MeFor those new to me or my reviews… here’s the scoop: I read A LOT. I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at https://thisismytruthnow.com, where you’ll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I’ve visited all over the world. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Vote in the poll and ratings. Thanks for stopping by. Note: All written content is my original creation and copyrighted to me, but the graphics and images were linked from other sites and belong to them. Many thanks to their original creators.